Writing the End, Imagining the Future: Ecoapocalypses and Ecotopias in Anglophone Literature

In The Last Man (1826), Shelley thus envisioned the annihilation of the human race: an endemic disease being turned into a pandemic plague by a combination of war related increase in human contacts and an unprecedented rise in air temperature. Nearly a century and a half later, Callenbach’s Ecotopia (1975) imagined a sustainable society featuring mandatory waste recycling and electric engines, widespread bike sharing, and advanced technological devices called “picturephones.” Science fiction has long exhibited an uncanny ability to anticipate the worst and, more rarely, the best of possible futures. Yet today, as climate change, global warming, the sixth mass extinction, phosphogeddon, and other eco catastrophes have ceased to be speculative concerns and instead define the lived reality of many communities, the once cathartic potential of apocalyptic narratives may be diminishing. As noticed by Amitav Ghosh, “There is, […], an important difference between the weather events that we are now experiencing and those that occur in surrealist and magical realist novels: improbable though they might be, these events are neither surreal nor magical. To the contrary, these highly improbable occurrences are overwhelmingly, urgently, astoundingly real.” (2017, 27) Over the last decades, eco apocalyptic and dystopian works have functioned as a means of reflecting on contemporary environmental crises, serving as cautionary tales designed to warn and engage readers with urgent global concerns (Basu, Broad, and Hintz 2013; Bradford et al. 2008; Curry 2013). However, recent interdisciplinary research spanning psychology, anthropology, affect studies, environmental activism, participatory culture, and speculative fiction (Callahan et al. 2019; de Moor et al. 2020; Leyda 2023; Lockyer and Veteto 2015; McKinley 2008; Nairn 2019; Oziewicz, Attebery, and Dědinová 2022; Weik von Mossner 2017) suggests that an overreliance on apocalyptic frameworks may be counterproductive. Scholars argue that narratives centred on climate catastrophe risk engendering paralysis rather than action, as they can reinforce the perception of an inevitable and insurmountable collapse, discouraging proactive engagement with environmental challenges (Arnold 2018; Hull 2019). In response, alternative genres such as ecotopias and solarpunk offer visions of the future that inspire optimism rather than despair. These narratives imagine worlds that are not only sustainable but deeply appealing, fostering a desire for systemic transformation and encouraging active participation in building a more just and environmentally integrated society (Ulibarri 2022; Weik von Mossner 2017). This issue of Textus invites contributions that examine eco apocalyptic visions, climate fiction, and environmental dystopias, as well as alternative imaginaries such as ecotopias, solarpunk, fantasy, afrofuturist and feminist utopias. We welcome ecocritical analyses of both classic and contemporary works of adult and children's literature, along with other critical approaches informed by ecofeminism, intersectionality, blue and green humanities, energy humanities, posthumanism, new materialism, and affect studies.